Common Sense Part 2

[+archeangelsk2002]

hello friends and neighbors

ye olde bald heade archie here

in an earlier post i mentioned such things as the 2 man rule, and proper clothing and equipment. in this post id like to discuss what i call recovery.

recovery is defined as the practices necessary upon completion of mission.

recovery consists of the proper maintenance of all items upon completion of your mission. your mission in this case is geocaching. the items are the things you had to have to safely and securely geocache.

basically speaking checking everything you took with you to go geocaching.

clothing, shoes, boots,expendibles,first aid etc. once again, a lot of this is common sense, but for the benefit of new cachers i feel its important.

most imprtantly, during recovery, is the geocacher themselves. one should realise that concluding a great day of caching one should check themselves out for injuries, insect bites, rashes, blistering, ticks, etc.(please note: a shower WILL not remove a tick once its embedded in your skin, and generally you cant feel a leech as its attaching itself to you.) it is also not such a good idea to pull a tick out of your skin because its likely that the ticks head may still be embedded in your flesh and most certainly its highly unwise to just remove a leech by pulling it off. thus the primary reason soldiers blouse their pants legs in their boots, to keep sneaky little crawly things out of your pants.

regards

more to come

ye olde bald headed archie

[+º]

TICKS

 

If you discover a tick in your skin remove it asap with tweezers but take care that you don't squeeze the body (This will inject all the waste of the tick into your body). Don't put oil on it, don't burn it, don't wait till the next day, don't do anything except removing it gently! It takes about 12-24h till a tick excretes the bacteria of lyme disease into your body. If the spot itches a little bit don't worry but if after a few days/weeks the skin around it gets red you should see a physician (pictures of lyme disease).

 

Don't panic - not every tick is infectious.

 

In Canada and the US it's possible to let you vaccinate against lyme disease since there exists only one microbial strain. In Europe that's not possible since there are at least five strains.

 

Unfortunately I don't have any information about TBEV (tick-borne encephalitis virus) in Canada and the US. In Europe it's a quite wide-spread disease. TBEV can be leathal.

 

German information about ticks

 

... ticks aren't that bad :

Edited August 11, 2004 by teamguzbach.org

[+Robespierre]

most imprtantly, during recovery, is the geocacher themselves. one should realise that concluding a great day of caching one should check themselves out for injuries, insect bites, rashes, blistering, ticks, etc.(please note: a shower WILL not remove a tick once its embedded in your skin, and generally you cant feel a leech as its attaching itself to you.) it is also not such a good idea to pull a tick out of your skin because its likely that the ticks head may still be embedded in your flesh and most certainly its highly unwise to just remove a leech by pulling it off. thus the primary reason soldiers blouse their pants legs in their boots, to keep sneaky little crawly things out of your pants.

I am NOT doing my cool-down exercises!

[Tahosa and Sons]

A pint is a pound round the world is the key to my recovery. Now you might ask what do I mean by this. Well I get on the scale and weigh myself before departure, then weigh when I return. Ok so I've sweated off 4 lbs. Well that means 4 pints of beer to get me almost back to my starting weight. And I'll add a few more pints just for good measure and relaxtion.

[+strikeforce1]

TICKS

 

If you discover a tick in your skin remove it asap with tweezers but take care that you don't squeeze the body (This will inject all the waste of the tick into your body). Don't put oil on it, don't burn it, don't wait till the next day, don't do anything except removing it gently!

 

Don't panic - not every tick is infectious.

 

We've discussed this in our camping thread many times. Two of the best ways to remove a tick are: and some will disagree, I'm sure!

 

1) Heating the tweezers with a lighter and placing the points by the head. The tick will withdraw itself. This takes some time, so be patient.

 

2) Using lighter fluid or gasoline. Place a drop or two directly on the site where the tick is attached. The tick will quickly detach itself. This is quicker / but not so common as heat, not everybody carries these fluids with them.

 

In thirty years being in the woods,camping/hunting/fishing, I've been real lucky and never picked up one.

[+PandyBat]

In my whole 36 years of existence on this planet, I have pulled off numerous ticks that I picked up here and there. I've never pulled a tick off with a pair of tweezers or used any other method of pulling them off other than my index finger and thumb. I've never had a ticks head stay in after doing this and I've never heard of it happening to any of my friends or family. Has anyone else ever had a ticks head stay in after pulling out the body?

 

Thanks for the additional information!

[+Renegade Knight]

I've pulled them out of my dog. Caught early they are easy. If they embed they are a real SOB and I can see how the head might stay in. So far no heads have remained embeded.

[+Phonedave]

In my whole 36 years of existence on this planet, I have pulled off numerous ticks that I picked up here and there. I've never pulled a tick off with a pair of tweezers or used any other method of pulling them off other than my index finger and thumb. I've never had a ticks head stay in after doing this and I've never heard of it happening to any of my friends or family. Has anyone else ever had a ticks head stay in after pulling out the body?

 

Thanks for the additional information!

 

I have to agree.

 

I have pulled them off both myself and the dog (and other family members) They are quite abundant in NW New Jersey - particulary around the start of Phesant season.

 

Never had a problem, the key is to look for them on your body as soon as you have a chance.

 

-dave

[+fly46]

I scratched a tick off one day (never felt it bite me, thought I just had an itch, scratched, and lo and behold, I was holding a tick) and it came head and all. Hope that wasn't from the same group of ticks that gave Lep lime disease.

 

As for the 12-24 hours, someone else told me it's only a 4 hour window.

[+Thot]

Has anyone else ever had a ticks head stay in after pulling out the body?

Yes. More often than not.

[+CompuCash]

there was a piece on the telly the other night about removing ticks - DO NOT PULL THEM OUT - as the above said it can cause forcing stuff into the bite.

 

They said scrape them off with a credit card.

[bodolad]

Know your foe...